Charlie was raised in the south, hit Chicago in 1962 where he sat in on late jams with masters like Muddy Waters, and by the late 60's, after being booked by Bill Graham to open for Cream, he's stayed in the West Coast ever since...

Currently Charlie lives up in Sonoma County...but rumor has it he purchased a hardware store in Clarksdale Mississippi and may be moving back there to his home state...

Hence the title of his downhome flava filled 2006 release "Delta Hardware"

Just saw Soul Asylum's new 3 disc "box set" package "Welcome To the Minority: The A+M Years 1988-1991" but haven't grabbed a copy yet. The price was just a wee bit high for two albums I basically already have. The real trigger for me would be to get my hands on the third disc, the live stuff recorded in 1990. There's decently recorded live versions of unheralded classics like Marionette & Cartoon as well as covers like To Sir With Love, Tracks of My Tears etc.

Here's a track Dan Murphy sang on Hang Time, their first record after Twin Tone sold their contract to A&M in a deal that also included the Mekons in 1987.

I might wait for it to turn up used, but the problem is...only 5000 are pressed and if I wait too long...who knows when that'll happen.

Consumer Dilemmas eh?

Anyhow...here's another track from Soul Asylum's ill fated A&M era, one that apparently isn't included in the new three disc collection. It was on a promo version of their 2nd A&M album "And The Horse They Rode In On"...of which the first part of the title was supposed to be "F*ck Soul Asylum...", apparently that's the sentiment they felt around the A&M HQ when the record was being tracked at the old Chaplin Soundstage in Hollywood.

Bone's in The Poontones who are playing @ The Elks Lodge

Hope I have time to stop by after I while away a few hours getting liquored up at some droll dinner affair at some Country Club named after a bird or a canyon or both out in the sticks beforehand...

The weekend has it's own maniacal agenda shaping up, with nightclub nincompoopery likely in effect, as well as a gig in Golden Gate Park I promised to work featuring some fairly faceless new adult rawker types like James Blunt, Joss Stone ...

Which, now that I consider all this, and the abject hideousness of today's pre-fab pop rock flavas of the minute... and the followers themselves...

yikes

like Mission of Burma...

that's when I reach for my...

I reach back, and not finding a revolver...look into the oldies collection I've amassed

Now hey, this was some tasty pre-fab pop idol shit!!!

Eat yer heart out annoying American Idols, yer like 50 years late on that shtick at least...

Let's talk about our boy Scotty McKay aka Max K. Lipscomb

Dude was born destined in Dallas in 1937. Out of High School or whatever he was up to, after filling out a talent agency application, he joined up as a rhythm guitarist/pianist in Gene Vincent's Blue Caps in late 1957.

Lipscomb was of course listed as being 17, even though he was already 20. He admitted to being recommended not being much of a backing musician and figures Vincent was likely not paying attention at the audition. The rest is obscure rock n roll history, as Vincent soon dumps the Blue Caps, and McKay either has to go back to school or figure something out...

Philly based "teen idol" producer's Bob Crewe and Frank Slay soon figured he was handsome & blond enough, and recorded him under the stage name Scotty McKay. Lipscomb remembers being called that at the suggestion of Dick Clark after turning down other possible monikers like Dal Houston & Chess McKay. So, the newly branded Scotty McKay released sides on a series of small East Coast labels including Event, Parkway, Swan, and Lawn before the 1960 Payola scandal pulled Clark's pre-fab "teen idol" empire apart.

McKay ended up recording until 1962 in New Orleans at Ace Records, who needed some fresh whiteboy faces after attempting to abandon R&B. McKay did 6 classic singles with sidemen like Mac Rebbenack, Allen Toussaint and Fats Domino's backing band.

The Ace material is considered by some to be the bulk of his really key shit, so I'll tuck a few in here for you to hear...

After his relationship with Ace ended, McKay kept his career as alive as possible with one shot deals with labels like SSS, Dot, Desk, Phillips, Capri, Falcon and Claridge. In 1963 a song he wrote called Summer's Comin' was a hit for Kirby St. Romain reaching # 49 on the cahrts. By 1965, The Scotty McKay Quintet found themselves a cameo role in a low budget Vincent Price horror flick for AIP based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" where he appears briefly on screen performing his own tune Sinner Man and covers of Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley" and Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man". His only other on screen credit occurs in an even lower budget 1967 TV movie called "Creature of Destruction". At one point while on a Dick Clark package tour backing Brian Hyland, he ended up recording a single with brit blues act the The Yardbirds that was released in the U.K on Columbia in 1967.

The story how that occurs is pretty funny so I'll toss it in...

The Yardbirds were on one of those package tours, playing alongside Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs, and Brian Hyland of "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and "Gypsy Woman" fame...

Scotty McKay had taken up a gig as one of Hyland's backing "band" which was essentially one guitarist, and a bunch of other guys in ponchos appearing to strum along in time to the music. Apparently the road hardened Brits took to cracking up at this silly scene, and taking the piss out of Hyland's ego, they'd jump in alongside occasionally with Hyland even noticing the additions to the backline.

McKay struck up a friendship, and the amphetamine rattled rocker ended up recording with the Yardbirds.

He kept trying, also recording for the Squire label as Max K Lipscomb With Bobby Rambeau Orchestra, and tried his luck as Tommy And The Tom Tom's and even as the Shut Downs. In 1970, Scotty McKay contributed a song to Gene Vincent's first Kama Sutra album at Gene's request, and sang backing vocals. Despite some 30 years in the biz and a lengthy if haphazard discography, he never truly reached the pinnacles of pop infamy he'd sought before his death came in 1991.

There were undoubtedly good times, but as we know too well, also bad times as well...

Here's a McKay cut from a rare acetate, but now immortalized digitally on a Norton Records collection that's chuck fill of classic rockabilly fodder.

I downloaded it at eMusic, the site that never quits offering up tasty tuneage...

Well, I called for you at eight, you asked me who I amYou open up the front door, I hear the backdoor slamYou treat me bad, plain ole badThere'll be no fun tonight, unless you treat me rightGimme no badYeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah

One and one is two, two and two is fourBaby-baby-baby I just can't take no moreNo bad, mmmm got it badNo fun tonight, unless you treat me rightGimme no badYeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah

Well now honey-honey-honey, what'ya gonna doWhy I love you baby, yeah I love you like I doYou treat me bad, oh real badThere'll be fun tonight, try to treat me rightDon't be badYeah, never badOh, way ever badYeah, way ever bad[fade]

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Wow, been a busy few weeks, and I guess I haven't had a chance to do a meaty post here since the month began. I guess I'll lead with some Septemeber tuneage to celebrate the reopening of the blather, (even though technically we are now closer to the historic month of ROCKTOBER!

Watch a spastic college student unnecessarily tasered by thuggish campus rent a cops after asking John Kerry questions at a public forum...

If you aren't familiar with the shock doctrine concept... It's a new book by Naomi Klein that explores the vicious capitalist ploys that use the pretext of "emergency" to take away rights and subjugate populations.

I'm personally looking forward to possibly catching an appearance by Naomi Klein later this month, when she's in town promoting her new book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". You can read an excerpt at Alternet, and here's a short film by Alfonso & Jonas Cuarón to illustrate the hypothesis presented.

The story about the war profiteers in Blackwater Security being banned from Iraq is no surprise after viewing this "shocking" video of Americans driving in Bagdhad. You can feel the love of the Iraqi people as our vehicles patrol the city...

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